My Story In Part

I am a person of many cultures and influences, born in the West Midlands in the middle of what was then termed Black Country, and that is nothing to do with race but industry, in England of Nigerian parents who were students from the Western Region of Nigeria, in the 60s.

For about the first 5 years, I was the only child until siblings appeared in quick succession when we returned to Nigeria. I have lived in Kaduna and Jos in the North of Nigeria and have blogged extensively about my childhood in Jos, of which I have fond memories.

We moved to Southern Nigeria in the late 70s, I was in Sagamu where I attended secondary boarding school because my parents wanted to toughen me up and get to me imbibe the culture, learn our traditions, and speak the lingo. I have my misgivings about this decision and much as I am moulded by the experience, I retain no enduring ties from there, in friends or the alumni.

We lived in Lagos where I had part of a failed tertiary education, ruinous students’ union politics and started over again after stints in Chemical Engineering and Electrical Engineering, I eventually settled on Electrical/Electronic Engineering because I was interested in computers.

From working for a computer services company, I ended up in the middle of a desktop publishing phenomenon that swept other legal publishers including one of great renown and civil rights accomplishments out of the way. I became a partner in a company for which a business visit to the UK acquainted me of knowledge had a marketplace for my skills if I was ready for the opportunities.

After returning to Nigeria, I planned my return to the UK for pastures anew, of keeping abreast of technology and the makings of a senior computer geek. A vocation in which I was both successful and thrived.

London, Ipswich, London and Ipswich again was the point at which an occupational psychotherapist told me I was suffering the classic signs of a mid-life crisis 10 years early. The end of a 7-year relationship hastened things up.

That is how I landed in the Netherlands but as an Englishman abroad, a new life, a changed life, a post-graduate qualification in Computer Science, many interesting jobs and projects with a personal blog running since December 2003 that started at the defunct http://akin.blog-city.com with opinions that reflect a rather libertarian view of issues. I migrated the whole blog here between 2010 and the beginning of 2012.

Oh! There was a brush with cancer in 2009, all that pain, 5 months of chemotherapy and the struggle to rebuild my life again without losing my zest for living, my humour and sometimes crazy optimism – I suppose when you have had a close hit-and-run with death, it puts a lot of things into perspective.

Now, I have been back in the UK, since August 2012, soon to reach my diamond jubilee, a pseudo-grandpa failing to escape the grip of adolescence. I have fallen in love with an extraordinarily handsome Zimbabwean, and we have plans, exciting plans indeed.

I would hate to think of where my youth has gone, I have ideas for all sorts of exciting stuff like someone with a new lease of life and in the midst of that, I love travel, history, architecture, the sun, photography and good food.

I am yours truly.